‘You were a corruption superspreader’: Judge sentences ex-state Rep. Luis Arroyo to 57 months in prison in bribery case involving sweepstakes machine bill
Saying he needed to send a message on the cost of public corruption, a federal judge on Wednesday sentenced former state Rep. Luis Arroyo to nearly five years in federal prison for trying to bribe a state senator to help with legislation expanding the shadowy world of sweepstakes gambling machines.
Rejecting a defense plea for probation, U.S. District Judge Steven Seeger railed against Arroyo’s “dirty” conduct, saying in a lengthy speech that he sold out an already corruption-weary public and committed a “frontal assault on the very idea of representative government.”
“You were a corruption superspreader,” Seeger said near the end of a nearly four-hour hearing at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. “The public did not get what they deserved. They voted for an honest representative, and what they got was a corrupt politician.”
Arroyo’s lawyers had maintained that a prison sentence for the longtime Chicago Democrat would do nothing to stop the state’s seemingly intractable corruption problem and would be akin to “draining Lake Michigan with a spoon.”
But the judge took particular umbrage with attempts to downplay what Arroyo did, and at one point asked defense attorney Michael Gillespie specifically about the spoon comment.
“What does that mean?” the judge asked. ”What am I supposed to do with that?”
As Gillespie fumbled for an answer, Seeger interrupted in a stern voice: “Maybe judges need a bigger spoon.”
Arroyo, 67, entered a blind guilty plea in November to one count of honest services fraud, a move that came without an agreement with prosecutors on what sentencing recommendations should be made to the judge.
The 57-month term imposed by Seeger was above the four years in prison recommended by prosecutors on Wednesday.
Before the sentence was handed down, Arroyo, sitting at the defense table dressed in a baggy blue suit, issued a short apology to the court, saying he “cannot begin to put into words how awful I feel.”
“I let my constituents down, I let my loved ones down who mean more than anything in life to me,” he said. “Please take into consideration all of my life actions when you impose my sentence. Allow me to go home to my family as soon as possible.”
Arroyo did not show any outward reaction to the sentence. Seated in the courtroom gallery, his wife and daughter gasped and started to cry.
The judge ordered Arroyo to surrender to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons no later than Aug. 31.
Arroyo resigned his seat shortly after he was arrested in 2019 on the bribery charges. A superseding indictment later added new wire and mail fraud charges against Arroyo and also charged James T. Weiss with bribery, wire fraud, mail fraud and lying to the FBI.
Weiss, who is married to the daughter of former Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios — former state Rep. Toni Berrios — has pleaded not guilty.
The case centers on the largely uncharted world of sweepstakes machines, sometimes called “gray machines,” for which Arroyo was moonlighting as a lobbyist. The machines allow customers to put in money, receive a coupon to redeem for merchandise online and then play electronic games like slot machines.
Since the machines can be played for free, they are not considered gambling devices. Critics, however, contend the unregulated devices, which operate in cities like Chicago that have banned video gambling, are designed to skirt the law.
According to the 15-page indictment, Weiss paid bribes to Arroyo beginning in November 2018 in exchange for Arroyo’s promotion of legislation beneficial to Weiss’ company, Collage LLC, which specialized in the sweepstakes machines.
Weiss was also in business with another sweepstakes machine company, V.S.S. Inc., run by an ex-Chicago cop who was fired for consorting with a drug trafficker, the Tribune has previously reported.
The bribes were paid via off-the-books lobbying payments to Arroyo’s consulting firm, Spartacus 3 LLC, which Arroyo failed to report to state regulators, according to the charges.
Both Weiss and Arroyo also conspired in 2019 to pay then-state Sen. Terry Link $2,500 a month in kickbacks in exchange for the senator’s support on the proposed sweepstakes game legislation.
At the time, Link, a Vernon Hills Democrat, was secretly cooperating with the FBI. He resigned from office before pleading guilty to unrelated tax evasion charges in September 2020.
Link was wearing an FBI wire when Arroyo allegedly delivered the first of the promised $2,500 checks at a restaurant in Skokie, according to prosecutors.
“This is, this is the jackpot,” Arroyo allegedly told Link as he handed over the money.
In asking for significant prison time, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Durkin noted in a recent court filing that had Arroyo’s scheme been successful, “he would have changed Illinois law regarding the gaming industry, a heavily regulated industry, for his personal financial benefit and the benefit (of Weiss).”
At Wednesday’s hearing, Durkin said that when Arroyo was pushing Link to help him at a meeting in 2019, Link asked, “What’s in it for me?”
Arroyo responded immediately, “I’m a paid consultant, OK.”
“He immediately went to money,” Durkin said. “Not, ‘This is an important bill,’ or, ‘This is good legislation.’ ... He went straight to money. That’s not the response of someone making a one-time mistake.”
Gillespie, meanwhile, said Arroyo’s misdeeds should not wipe out a lifetime of impressive achievements for the former politician, who suffered an abusive childhood and moved to the U.S. from Puerto Rico with virtually nothing at the age of 5. A bricklayer for nearly 30 years, Arroyo entered politics relatively late in life in 2006 and always strove to help his community, Gillespie said.
Arroyo’s wife, Maribel, and daughter, Denise, both shed tears in court as they described him as a devoted husband and father, hardworking, caring and steady through family crises.
”To grow together at our age and to see and be around our most precious gift of all, our beautiful family, I want him to have that chance,” Maribel Arroyo said, her hands shaking as she read from her written remarks. ”He is my light, your honor, and I don’t want to be left in the dark.”
Maribel spoke from a few feet behind Arroyo’s seat at the defense table. He did not turn to watch her, but as she spoke, he repeatedly raised his face mask up to his eyes to dab away tears.
In his remarks, Seeger said it was clear that Arroyo was a devoted family man and “a pillar of his community,” but chastised him repeatedly for trying to downplay the severity of his corrupt acts.
The judge also noted that while there was no evidence of any other crimes committed in the wiretapped conversations, Arroyo certainly knew the language of corruption and seemed to be “in familiar territory.”
“I need to make sure that the message gets out that public corruption isn’t worth it,” Seeger said. “For whatever reason, that message isn’t getting through.”
Arroyo and his attorneys left the courthouse Wednesday without commenting.
